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Bob Wyman wrote:
> ...
>
> An alternate view would see this result as potentially
>invigorating those who oppose bad patents by reminding them that
>petitioning for reexamination can be useful. All too often, the
>community is well aware that there are bad patents but basically
>cowers in silence waiting for someone else to be sued. It is, I think,
>not coincidental that the many lawyers who counsel against attempts to
>petition for reexamination are fully aware that they can earn
>massively higher fees defending a patent in court then they can by
>simply preparing a petition for reexamination...
> The existing process offers many, almost universally ignored,
>mechanisms to prevent and defeat bad patents. There is, for instance,
>the rarely used opportunity to file prior art with the examiner within
>60 days of an application's publication. There is also a process,
>exploiting the "duty of candor", in which an inventor can be forced to
>submit prior-art to the examiner after the 60 day period. (This is
>virtually never used.) There is the process for demanding
>reexamination -- but only a few thousand such petitions are filed each
>year and most of those are simply "pro forma" petitions that are
>half-heartedly filed as part of defending a suit of infringement.
>There is also the opportunity, that I've mentioned before, of filing a
>Statutory Invention Registration in order to block patents. And, there
>are a number of mechanisms for filing disclosures with the patent
>office to ensure that prior-art is in their libraries.
>
I'd suggest that people who are actually doing development rarely have
the inclination to deal with the bureaucracy, especially for issues that
should be considered obvious by any reasonable interpretation of the
word. From my point of view, you're advocating defensive holding actions
against a patent system that's gone out of control. I think dramatic
change is needed, and a victory by Eolas looks to me to be the event
most likely to bring about such change. The amount of money involved is
pocket change for Microsoft in any case.
- Dennis
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